Helene Bickford

I urge you to please pass this bill. I am in full support. Red Flag Laws or Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) help prevent mass shootings and gun suicides, which are often preceded by red flags – warning signs, threats and other dangerous behavior – because they enable individuals like family members and law enforcement officers to petition state courts to intervene and temporarily prevent someone in crisis from accessing firearms. This is risk-based, time-limited civil order. According to The Granite State Poll by UNH Survey Center, most Granite Staters - 75% of those surveyed - agree with a protection order to prevent those who may be at risk to themselves or others from buying a gun. Last year (2025), Maine passed a Red Flag law with 63% of the vote. Anne Jordan, a former Maine public safety commissioner, served as executive director of the Lewiston Commission, an independent body tasked by Gov. Janet Mills to determine the facts leading up to the October 2023 mass shootings in Lewiston. In an OpEd in support of the Red Flag measure, Jordan states, “As learned through the investigation, there were multiple warnings about the would-be shooter. His family contacted law enforcement for help, but law enforcement failed to make contact and our current law (a “yellow” flag law) gave the family no tools to take action themselves… A true ERPO law could have changed that. Either families or law enforcement can go directly to a court and ask a judge to temporarily prevent someone, who a court deems dangerous, from possessing firearms… it empowers families with a second tool. Often, families know best.” Without an ERPO, those who observe dangerous behaviours often have no clear means of intervening to prevent violence. An FBI report that studied active shooter incidents in the United States between 2000 and 2013 revealed that each active shooter displayed 4 to 5 concerning behaviors, observed by spouses, peers and even teachers. While the most common response was to communicate directly to the active shooter before the shooting (83%), only 41% of the cases were reported to law enforcement. This bill would provide families a tool to intervene if there are extreme warning signs.